1985-04-04 - Stone Ridge, NY - Other

Huge, low flying, silent cube shaped object with lights on bottom travelling about 60 m.p.h. over Stone Ridge.

Date is approximate, however it was the night of one of my best friend's birthday party who turned 18 on April 4, 1985. The party was actually set to begin around 9 P.M. but I needed to get there early because I was bringing my entire stereo system (which included a then-rare equalizer with spectrum analyzer). I didn't have many friends back then, but whenever there were parties, I would bring my whole stereo, and for a while I would be the center of attention as dozens of drunk and stoned teenagers stared at the dancing lights of the equalizer in a dark room while listening to heavy metal music. I, on the other hand, never drank or smoked or used any drugs in high school, and in 1985 had left high school a year early to go to the local community college in Stone Ridge, NY. I didn't see my friends very much that year, so I was willing to put up with their smoking and drinking because otherwise I would never see them. This meant driving my parent's car with the windows open even when it was cold so that the smell of marijuana and cigarettes would not stay in the car. On this particular night I stopped on Tongore Road in Stone Ridge to pick up another freind who had no desire to get a driver's license even though he was 18. This friend had a neighbor nearby who suppled him with marijuana and it was expected that he bring some to the party. As I drove northwest on Tongore Rd. away from Rt. 209, he started smoking some of the marijuana, so we opened our windows. We got about a mile away, to the flat area down the hill from Thumbprint Antiques, headed towards the Drumlin. At that point my friend was already acting a little high, and was not paying attention to our conversation. I saw what appeared to be a large house on a hill to the north with a lot of floodlamps turned on. I said something to the effect that it must be nice to be that rich to afford such a big house and keep all the lights turned on. For some reason, I felt like making a point of how he was not listening, so in the middle of the flats, there was a small dirt driveway leading to a field (like the kind farmers use to access their fields with a tractor), and I pulled in a few feet. Then I pointed out the big house with all the lights on. But when my friend finally saw it, we both realized it was not a house but a moving object. Within a few seconds we both realized that the object was huge because it was several miles away and was as big as a house would appear from a quarter-mile. It was travelling directly towards us. It took a couple of minutes before it was nearly overhead. We could both see that it seemed to have a flat bottom with many flashing lights and may have been cube shaped, although it was difficult to see the sides of the object with all the flashing lights on the bottom shining in our faces. In that flat area there was one large tree, and the object appeared to be getting lower, as if to land, and was not more than a hundred feet above the tree. I had shut off the car when we pulled in, and we had the windows open to air out the smoke, but we both noticed that there was no noise whatsoever. Realizing almost silmultaneously that this was no normal aircraft (because it was silent, only 100 feet in the air, travelling very slow, and as big as a football field) we panicked, thinking that this thing was about to land on top of us and crush us. I remember feeling like an ant must feel just before a shoe steps on it on the sidewalk. So I started the car and squealed the tires, backing out of the driveway and drove away at the highest speed a 1973 Pinto could do. We headed back towards Rt. 209 on Tongore Rd. up a steep hill where the car would not go over 30 m.p.h. and the object was nearly directly overhead. It was going slightly faster than us and had gained some altitude to clear the trees on the ridge where Rt. 209 runs through Stone Ridge. We followed it down Cottekill Rd. to Lucas Turnpike where the speed limit increases to 55 m.p.h.. At that point I was driving about 65 or 70 but the object was going a little bit faster. We followed it for about 20 or 25 minutes before losing sight of it as it cleared the Shawangunk mountain ridge near the Mohonk Mountain House. We had traveled about 15 miles and the object had traveled about 25 miles during those 25 minutes, and it's speed seemed to go from about 35 m.p.h. to about 75 m.p.h., much slower than any aircraft I have ever seen. We drove over the mountain to see if we could see it over the Hudson valley near New Paltz, but the winding road and steep hills slowed us down. By the time we got to the Hudson valley, it was gone. When we finally arrived at the birthday party a couple of hours late, the other people were only concerned about the marijuana. The keg was already empty, and they seemed a little upset that we were so late. They accused us both of making up the story so that we could smoke the marijuana ourselves (which I definitely did not do). My friend, the birthday guy, laughed when we told him the story, and 20 years later still does not believe either of us who saw the object, even though we have stuck to the same story for so many years. The friend who saw it aknowledges that he saw it 20 years ago and remembers chasing it many miles down dark rural roads, but seems content not to question what it was. Whatever it was, it was big, like the size of a city block of apartment buildings 5 or 10 stories tall, but seemingly solid. This event is one of the biggest reasons I have never been on an airplane, because it seemed that even a jumbo jet could have crashed into this object and only dented it.


((NUFORC Note: Witness indicates that the date of the incident is approximate. PD))